Independent Institute Senior Fellow Robert Higgs is interviewed by Scott Horton of Antiwar Radio on the widening gap between public and private sector pay, the increasing affluence of military towns compared with others, the disappearance of traditional checks on government power, and the predation and incremental ratchet effect of expanding governmental powers that increase temporarily during wartime but never really recede.

In June 2008 the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a landmark ruling on the Second Amendment individual right to keep and bear arms with its Heller v. District of Columbia decision. Two years later, in June 2010, a second historic decision squeezed through the highest court in the land.

Senior Fellow Robert Higgs is interviewed here by Scott Horton on Antiwar.com Radio, warning those who long for total governmental and economic collapse to be careful what they wish for. Higgs also explains why federal spending cannot continue at the current record levels without a failure of the bond market. He further compares the military and economic over-extension of the Soviet Union prior to its collapse to the United States as a warning against rampant spending by the government.

In 2008 the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its landmark ruling on the Second Amendments individual right to keep and bear arms in Heller v. District of Columbia. Now the question remains whether this right must be recognized by the States and their political subdivisions.